CHERRY BLOSSOM 10-MILER (race report):

This may be my favorite race in the Washington area. Certainly it's my favorite big race. I've heard people complain that it's too big for the narrow roads it's run on, which must indeed be frustrating for people stuck behind slower runners. But both of the times I've run it, this year and last, I was able to start right up front in the first wave, just behind the professional and elite runners, where crowds are not a problem. The course is almost entirely flat but also interesting. The scenery is striking, even when the cherry blossoms themselves are mere buds as they were this year. The course circles back on itself a couple times early on so that you can see faster runners up ahead of you; and there are enough turns to keep the course from becoming boring but not so many that it slows you down a lot. The crowds and support are also great without being overwhelming. This year, however, wind was a factor, especially on the second half of the course in East Potomac Park, which is surrounded by water. When I first went outside and felt the wind the morning of the race, I expected that my more ambitious goal of finishing under 62 minutes was unrealistic and scaled my hopes back to my original goal of finishing under 63 minutes. Still, I felt good in the first part of the race and went through halfway in 31:07, almost on pace to hit my more ambitious goal. In fact, my Garmin misled me into thinking that I went through halfway under 31 minutes, probably because part of the course runs under the overhang of the Kennedy Center and screws up GPS reception, which caused my Garmin to tell me that I was .07 miles further along the course than I really was beginning somewhere in mile 4. Anyway, around halfway I started getting tired and would have slowed down a little even if we hadn't started running into a moderate headwind at that point, but together those two factors caused me to run the second half 47 seconds slower than the first, or almost 10 seconds per mile. After crossing the 10k mark in 38:52 I just tried to keep running fast enough to finish under 63 minutes, and I think I managed to hold my form together relatively well. By the beginning of mile 9 I was sure that I could manage a 1:02:59 and relaxed somewhat, though a sour stomach and some rude little hills in mile 10 required me to work harder at the end. When I crossed the finish line, I believed that I was finishing comfortably with 3-4 seconds to spare. But it turned out that I had miscalculated and actually finished in 1:03:01. Of course my first thought was that I could easily have run a couple seconds faster in the last couple miles if I had calculated correctly. But, really, who cares? I basically hit my goal for the race, and it's kind of dumb anyway to aim for such a nice, round number instead of simply running as hard as I can. That's what I get for relaxing in mile 9, I guess. My average pace works out to 6:18/mi., but I ran 6:13/mi. in the first half and 6:23/mi. in the second. Even without the wind, I don't think that I could have run under 62 minutes that day after all. Maybe 1:02:30 or so. But I'm happy with how the race went, and really it's pretty remarkable that I could run as fast as I did after training so little for so long now. I know that I have the legs and lungs to run significantly faster, certainly under an hour for 10 miles, if I just got my running act together and put in a significant block of harder training. It is kind of gratifying, though, to continue improving as I am without working very hard - this was a 10 mile PR by 1:41 or 10 seconds per mile.